Beer books and mats

A quick post about two enjoyable projects I’ve been involved with recently – both with a beer theme, which may explain the enjoyment.

The first is The 100 Beer Project, in which design company SB Studio got the Liverpool Craft Brewing Company to bottle its own beer, then commissioned 100 designers to create bottle labels, each working with an ‘SB’ name, ranging from Stranded Badger to Silent Bingo.

I contributed this Foreword, which I decided might as well be 100 words:

There’s something about a beer label: a simple canvas attached to a uniquely appealing product. Every designer wants to do one.

And there’s something about restrictions. The modest size of the canvas and the deliberately limited starting point of names beginning with SB.

Then the game starts: on one level, a purely playful exercise in creative expression; on another level, a distillation of the purpose of design and branding – to give life and personality to the products around us.

This project gives 100 personalities to a single product: some witty, some weird, some bold, some beautiful. All subliminally branded: SB.

The second project is a festive collaboration with design company Build and printer Generation Press. I recently supplied words for the new Generation Press website and brand refresh, based largely around the word (Th)ink.

When it came to the Christmas mailer, we decided to make it all about (Dr)ink. So it’s a set of eight drinks coasters, each dedicated to a particular service area (Litho, Digital, Foiling and so on), but playfully relating it to a favourite tipple.

The nice thing about working with Build and Generation Press is you can count on it being beautifully designed and produced, which always makes the words look ten times better.